Yay! I love Crochet Me! And I understand your enthusiasm, I had a skirt in the summer issue and I was so excited when the issue was finally up. I can't wait to really see all the patterns, so far this morning I got to the thumbnails, but none of the patterns will come up. The server is apparently still having problems

You bring up a good question. It's one I would like clarification on as a designer. I have a friend who wrote a cookbook, and in that case she said that legally if you change a recipe 30% you can call it yours. So I would like to find out what it is for patterns, how much DO you have to change something to call it your own? If you take a knit pattern and convert it to crochet is it yours, or is it a derivative work? These are questions I've been meaning to research, but I'm not even sure where to start.

yeah, I'm not sure - I just don't think that removing hind legs and swirling a tail isn't making a pattern your own.I am not sure what the rules are for crochet or knitted projects - being a designer myself I don't do that - I start from scratch on every project I do - I don't take a purse and say hey, I love the shape of that bag - it is the perfect size and color - but wouldn't it look great with a different handle? And then claim it as my own.. Every single thing I do I start from scratch. Apparantly not all people do that.

I don't know if you guys meant this conversation to be in this thread or not, as it looks a little like something is missing, but there is no such thing as a legally binding "change x percent or whatever" rule. The copyright office is quick to dispell that myth as well as things like the "poor man's copyright" thing about mailing something to yourself, etc. If you are building on someone else's intellectual property rights, you very well could run into trouble, and that's the low down and dirty. You may not believe you're doing anything wrong, even MOST people may not believe that you are doing anything wrong, but if you are doing anything beyond simply taking inspiration from, then you run the risk of copyright infringement. If you look at a picture and are inspired to create a garment of the same shape or color, etc., that's inspiration and they haven't (yet) legistlated that. But the extent of protection for intellectual property is at best vague, and if it can be proved even the least little bit that you started with one person's intellectual property and used any portion of it in your final product and then claimed it as your own... they'd probably have a case.

Sorry about that - the part about a part being missing - I accidentally hit delete my message instead of modify.

The fat cat in the new crochetme is very familiar to a pattern that was in a Japanese pattern - that being said and upon reading both patterns - the similarity is striking - but it isn't identical. Just by taking one look at it I recognized it - and compared it - the body is worked up differently - but the ears and shape of the head, alignment of the head even the way the eyes and nose and whiskers are put on are similar - kind of like if you saw a picture of it and said hey, I can make that - and did.

I will leave it at that. They are not the same pattern but dang they look close enough to be siblings.

It is cute even if it does look like a reproduction of it. I just couldn't do that - and publish it. If I were hanging out at home and said hey I like that - I am going to try and make one just like that - I personally couldn't say it was my own idea. Maybe it is old fashioned thinking on my behalf - I just think that if you put your name on it - you should really have thought it all up on your own.

Here is a pic of two that I made up for a swap - from the Japanese booklet. They are cute. I altered the original embroidery on the face since I was going for a different look than the original. I also added color on their chests - since I was trying to make them look like the recipient's own kitties...

Ah yes, that does shed some light on the subject. As has been said, there's nothing new under the sun, and without knowing whether the creator of the fat cat saw the Japanese cat pattern, and really not wanting to make anything that even remotely resembles a disparaging remark about one of the other CrochetMe designers, I will reserve judgement on that one. After all, it's also possible that something from Japanese pop culture influenced both creations, and the particular shape of the CrochetMe fat cat reminds me a lot of a certain artist's work who's name I do not recall, but I know she designs fabrics. So, it could be a case of the one inspiring the other, or an honest case of two similar patterns cropping up independantly, which sounds like too much of a coincidence, but really it happens all the time.

That said, I will say that my first knit pattern was based on a picture (a very small picture) of a pattern from a European magazine. I never saw the magazine itself, nor would I have understood the directions, and I made my version in completely different yarns, with raglan sleeves, though I have no idea if the original had raglan shaping or not, and of course the pattern I wrote is mine from the ground up. I took inspiration from the European design and created something of my own. However, I self-published the design on my own site, though I was urged to submit it to publications (have no idea how successful that would have been...) and state specifically that I took inspiration from another design. While I am proud of my creation, and do claim it as entirely my own pattern, I felt it was only right to credit the source of my inspiration. I wasn't trying to recreate the original, but my creative process leaned heavily on it, and I'm not ashamed of that at all. It was, after all, only my fifth or sixth completed knitted item.

Anyway, I guess what I'm getting at is, from a legal standpoint it would only be copyright infringement if the person actually used the original pattern, which is the copyrighted material, in their "own" work. (Cases of blackmarket handbags and the like are litigated under trademark law, if I'm not mistaken.) Taking inspiration, even heavily, from something else is not against the law, though many of us might, to one degree or another, believe it is less than ethical to do so without crediting the original source.